take two
by readingrainbows
Summary: This is forgiveness, and it takes time. Beck and Jade and how it is to try—try again.


_Written entirely on my iPhone while I was waiting at the hospital last week; the fluorescent ceiling lights and pungent smell of acetone do wonders to the psyche, so forgive how odd this turned out. I emailed it to myself and barely had four and a half seconds to proofread it on a word document and add in a paragraph from a different half-finished story before I decided to just grow a pair and post it un-proofed, so you'll have to forgive the egregious grammatical errors as well._

_Also, this might be my last Bade for a while._

_Ah well._

;

Falling back into the same routine after their very public makeup is so easy it's almost laughable.

Beck can lean his head onto the back of his chair during improv class, one hand twisting around Jade's ankle, the other playing with her fingers and close his eyes, remember doing exactly this just a year ago. Some things, Beck figures as Jade snaps waspishly at one of Tori's high-pitched observations, some things never change.

Other things, Beck considers with a furrowed brow, as Jade, his new-old girlfriend shifts from beneath his palms and slides her body slightly away from him, straightening up in her seat as Sikowitz emphasizes a point, other things are changing all the time.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, Beck notes with a bit of distaste, not making any move to try to hold her again. Jade has been...careful around him, he can't help but notice, she falters just slightly each time she allows herself to tighten her fingers between his, as if she is not sure about this all this way, as if she is not sure about _him_ all the way. Nothing much scares Beck these days but he will openly admit her split second hesitance makes him want to grind his teeth into dust.

In his rare moments of maturity and clarity though, Beck understands, at least a little.

She is worried, is afraid, is not as trusting as she had been of him. He'd been the one sure thing in her life and then he wasn't anymore, okay, he could understand her hesitance to give herself over all the way again. Life is not a television sitcom, considers Beck as they exit from school that day and walk towards his truck. Her hand in his is not as firm as it should be, her eye roll not as open. This is not a television sitcom and it couldn't be fixed with the simplicity of a heartfelt confession and a makeup kiss.

He stops her before she pulls the door of his car open, grins slyly and feels his heart flutter like a hummingbird when she gifts him with one in return. He traps her against the side of his truck, melds his lips slowly to hers, and shivers when she curls fingers against the hair at his nape. This is forgiveness, Beck thinks with a grimace when pulls away just as he tries to deepen the kiss, it takes time.

He shakes it off, decides if he owes anyone anything, he owes Jade time.

"You wanna come over to my place?"

It's nearly twilight now; they'd had to stay hours late because the play Sikowitz had cast the lot of them in was in French-Canadian and Robbie kept flubbing his lines. She shrugs as she pops the door open and climbs in, waits until he starts the car and eases out of the parking lot to answer:

"I'm freaking exhausted. Just take me home."

Beck tries not to grip the steering wheel too tight, he knows Jade will notice and lash out, he also knows she doesn't deserve this anger coursing through him; it's hardly even directed towards her anyway.

They have not slept together since their makeup four weeks ago.

It is not the fact that Beck has not had sex in eight months that annoys him, but rather the idea that Jade keeps rebuffing his advances. She isn't ready, isn't willing, even though she'd been much more than eager once upon a time. It could be trust, Beck thinks, blinking at the road whizzing past, it's possible she doesn't trust him anymore, cannot imagine herself in such a vulnerable position with him anymore after all that he'd done and—

"Slow the hell down, you passed my house!"

Oh.

Yes, he had.

Beck exhales harshly through his nose, tries to smile reassuringly at her and chuckles a little, like it's no big deal. He shifts the truck into reverse and backs up a few feet until her house comes into view again. He puts the breaks on.

She's quiet for a second as the truck shutters on idle, one foot dangling out her opened door and the other still firmly in. She seems to be debating something, considering an idea in her mind and—_time_, Beck reminds himself, give this beautiful, deserving girl _time_—Beck waits, biting one cheek to see what she says.

"You…you wanna come in?"

Beck blinks, not expecting that, and in one fluid motion flicks the engine off and pulls out the key. _This is it_, he thinks, hope bubbling up so high in his chest he thinks he can taste it, _she's letting me in her house, in her room, she's letting me _in, and that's all that matters, that's all he wants anyways.

"Sure," he says, tossing a lopsided smile her way and when she rolls her eyes in a perfectly familiar manner and slams his door extra hard, he lets the giddiness climb all around him, following her up the walk.

.

"_God_," Beck winces and turns his face away from the TV as a particularly enthusiastic splash of blood shoots across the screen.

"Shut up," Jade mutters, "this is the good part." He watches with something akin to lovesick rapture as Jade, eyes glued fully on the screen silently mouths the lines she knows by heart, lips moving in such perfect synchronicity with the characters in the movie, it seems almost as if she herself were speaking them.

"I think you've seen this one too many times," Beck teases, knowing even as he says it that watching this film together was another way Jade was letting him back in; the fact that she was so engrossed in it she'd even let her wall of anger and hostility drop for a few minutes was another. He swallows nervously; staring at the squinted flickering of her eyes as she follows the action onscreen, but when would he win her back fully? When would she love him the way she once had, and—frighteningly, would she ever again the same way? With so much love she couldn't even bare the idea of another woman within the same few feet of him?

Beck's breathing goes slightly shallow as he considers the idea that the wall Jade has built up against so much of the world, the wall currently blocking even himself out at the moment, could possibly stay erected against him forever.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Beck comes back down to earth to see she's paused the movie and is tilting her head slightly to the side, peering at him with furrowed brows.

"Jade," the name feels strangled on his throat, it won't come up as cleanly and smoothly as it once had, as if even his own body knows how little he deserves to say it, "I…"

He trails off. He knows he needs to apologize, but doesn't know how and barely even knows where to begin. He thinks she's the craziest woman alive to be sitting on her bed with him, looking at him with something akin to concern and allowing him to go around telling people she's his girlfriend.

He'd broken her once, and imagine how easily he could do so again. How stupid could she be to even _entertain_ the idea of a trusting relationship with him again when he'd held her whole world in his palm once, and decided he didn't want the weight anymore? How completely reckless could she be with her own _heart_ that—

"Beck, you idiot." She says it in a quiet little murmur as she draws herself slightly closer to him, runs the tip of her thumb over his sweating knuckles and fixes him with a soft, understanding smile.

"Jade, I'm _sorry_—" so much desperation in those two syllables but she hardly seems to hear, hardly seems to care as she moves in closer and closer and—and Beck can feel the moment like a tangible object: can grip it in his hand almost, can separate it in his mind, can draw a thick, straight, bright yellow line across the seconds right before and the seconds right after—she kisses him, a suctioned press of her mouth against his, drags her warm lips open-mouthed over his own, still parted in surprise.

He groans somewhere deep within his ribs and it vibrates through their bodies pressed so eagerly together and Beck grips her just above the hips, pulling her over him settling her weight upon his. And Beck cannot tell exactly you what the feeling of her writhing above him does to him, not really. All he can say is it feels like coming home.

.

He squints against the brightness of the room and groans heavily, turns his face into pillows that smell so deliriously like her and blindly reaches a hand out to his right side, hoping to grasp a shoulder blade, or perhaps the delightful indentation of her hip.

When he's met with nothing but the crinkling sound of crisp sheets and a soft impression in the mattress, he pulls his hand back and runs it through his hair, disgruntled.

"Jade," he calls in a groan, still not turning over. They had a late night, a _very_ late night, and he knows how deep and dark her curtains are, so he cannot for the life of him understand why there would be so much sunlight flooding the room.

"_Jade_," he calls again nearly in a whine after receiving no response the first time. How very like her to ignore him the morning after their amazing makeup session, thinks Beck with fondness. He rubs his face blearily against her pillows, trying to work himself up into a state of wakefulness and when he finally finds it in himself to turn over and face the room with squinting eyes, he hisses like a feral cat at the unbelievable _brightness_ of it all.

"Would you _shut up_," she snarls, but Beck, who can't help but consider himself a bit of an expert on all things Jade—her tone of voice easily included—thinks she sounds more amused than hostile.

Beck sits up with a groan, turning his face downwards until his chin bumps his chest and keeping his eyes mostly closed. _Lucky I have such luscious locks_, he thinks serenely at the strands that fall forwards and help to shield the blinding early morning rays.

"Why are the curtains open?" He groans like an accusation, roughly rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes with the heels of his palms, "You never open them, and it's _early_ babe, get away from the window—"

He stops all at once, eyes blinking wide open.

Because Jade, Jade is standing in front of her very large window, dressed in nothing but her fitted camisole and beautifully, his very own boxer shorts to ward off the chill of the morning. Just the thought of her in his undergarments sends a deep-seeded rush of longing through him, the intimacy and familiarity in the idea, how similar she looks to the girl from just a year ago.

But it is really Jade herself, standing before that window leaking over with buttery sunlight that makes his throat run dry. Her hair seems to have caught fire, thinks Beck with wonder. And—and he can truly do nothing more than watch in unintentional awe at the way the sunlight slips through all of her negative space, the juts of her hips and the two elegant, swooping curves that connect her should-blades to her flower stem neck, the way the light seems to carve her open and Beck thinks somehow he can see right inside her, can count her every rib and the veins that run all throughout her, can see the powder-white bones of her vertebra outlined against the glowing translucence of her skin; lifeblood that rushes through her every internal crevice, glinting and glittering from the intensity she stands so calmly before and he doesn't know if it is the earliness of the hour or the heady scent of her shampoo all around him or if it is just from loving this girl entirely too much, but even as she moves away, turns around to face him and steps to the left, standing now against her deeply purple walls, somehow she is still glowing, somehow she is still alight.

"Quit staring, you creeper." And it should shatter any ounce of magic he'd felt within the last few seconds, but all it does is fuel a fire inside of him. His heart, which had been thudding so slowly it may have stopped at a few points, speeds up exponentially as she voices words so unbearably _like_ her, at the coffee mug clutched firmly in her hand, around the belly of the ceramic thing instead of around the handle like a normal person and all Beck hopes is that he doesn't look too much like a lovelorn idiot as he stumbles from her bed, unwraps her sheets from around his ankles and stalks over to her.

She narrows her eyes at him, but Beck, expert Jade-reader that he is, understands it is more from challenge than from annoyance and without speaking any words, plucks the mug out from between her fingers and places it softly on her desk, all while backing her up-and-up-and-up until she is standing before the window again, facing him this time. Her body thuds very softly against the paneled glass, and Beck swallows the nervousness in his throat at the sight of her lighten up from the inside out again, at the light that leaks through all of her cracks, between each sliver of her hair and he descends, presses his mouth to her mouth like a starving man, slides shaking fingers through her hair, around the base of her skull and presses her as firmly as physically possible against the window.

The heat from her front combined with the heat of the sunlit glass makes him shiver like an overexcited preteen, but then she is there, curling graceful palms around his narrowed shoulders, flitting mischievous fingers over each bump and ridge of his curved spine, and when his knees go undeniably week beneath her loving hands, he has no humility left, not an ounce.

Somehow though, as they stumble and push back and forth in this war of passion no other girl has ever been able to ignite within him with the same fervor, somehow he is very okay with that. He thinks at least one person in the world should be able to see you in your worst and weakest moments, and Beck does not mind, does not mind that it is Jade who sees him at his.

"You owe me another cup of coffee," Jade rasps against his trembling jaw once she's broken apart for air. Beck tries to regain his breathing, tries to calm himself down as he rests his forehead against hers, slanting his eyes to the left only to see they'd spilled her coffee over in their fevered kissing and groping. He watches quietly for a moment as the liquid seeps down the length of her desk, it's a very soft color, coffee with too much cream, and Beck wonders what it means that she doesn't take this drink quite as bitter, anymore.

"Yeah," he shifts very slightly, imparts several lazy open-mouthed kisses to her parted mouth and runs his tongue briefly over the seam of her lower lip. He steps away just as she groans and whines for more, grinning when she glares and tries to pull him back.

"You said you wanted more coffee," he teases, not trying very hard to pull away from her. He'd be an idiot to want to; what with the way she's scraping her teeth so deliciously over the line of his collarbone.

She doesn't answer him, but she doesn't need to.

Beck peels her very few layers of clothing off with the finger-quivering carefulness of a simple man exposed to true art for the first time—but it isn't the first time, it isn't Beck knows, as he'll make sure there will never be a last and…and his thoughts go peacefully blank as he and Jade spend the next hour pressed against the warmth of her window, pushing and pulling, golden-lit against the rising sun.

.

_So yeah, Jade did need to do some Beck-forgiving, but mostly Beck needed to do some Beck-forgiving so he did, and I'm hardly even upset with him anymore. _

_For a fic with next to no plot and half a line of dialogue it's terribly wordy. I don't even know. _

_Thoughts? _


End file.
